WHEELS; Ford-G.M. Teamwork On Transmissions

By LINDSAY BROOKE

Published: April 21, 2013

Ford Motor and General Motors announced on Monday that they would jointly develop new transmissions with 9 speeds for front-wheel-drive vehicles and 10 speeds for rear-drive cars and trucks. The new transmissions, with more forward gear ratios than either company now offers, are expected to reach the market beginning in 2016.

The transmissions are considered vital components of the companies’ efforts to meet upcoming standards for fuel efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and Europe. The transmissions will “drive fuel economy improvements into both company’s future product portfolios,” said Jim Lanzon, G.M.’s vice president of global transmission engineering.

The automakers’ announcement had been anticipated last October but was delayed over protracted negotiations concerning intellectual property, according to sources familiar with the agreement. Reports of the pending alliance first emerged in an article in the Automobiles section in September 2012.

The joint transmission development program builds on the companies’ 2002 agreement that resulted in a 6-speed automatic for front-wheel-drive vehicles.

While Henry Ford couldn’t have foreseen this cooperative venture with General Motors when he said, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success,” the agreement does appear to fulfill his vision regarding manufacturing efficiency.

By cooperating on design, engineering, and testing, the automakers are expected to save hundreds of millions of dollars and considerable development time, said Skip Nydam, an industry analyst with ND-Automotive and a former transmission engineer. It also saves the cost of licensing the design and production rights from a specialist transmission supplier like ZF of Germany or Aisin of Japan, which can cost up to $100 per unit, according to engineers at Ford and G.M.

In the 2002 deal, considered a landmark in the highly competitive auto industry, Ford and G.M. invested a combined $720 million. They have since produced more than eight million transmissions — the model is known as the Ford 6F and G.M. 6T70 and 6T75 — for nearly 30 models, including the Ford Fusion, Edge, Escape and Explorer, and the Chevrolet Cruze, Malibu, Equinox and Traverse.

“We’ve already proven that Ford and G.M. transmission engineers work extremely well together,” said Joe Bakaj, Ford’s vice president of powertrain engineering.

Based on their previous 6-speed experience, the automakers will share many common parts for the new 9- and 10-speed; manufacturing the transmissions will take place in each company’s own plants. Software controls developed separately by the two automakers will tailor the units to specific G.M. and Ford vehicles, giving each its own performance and operating characterisitics.

The companies did not provide specific vehicle applications or technical details.

G.M. is understood to have contributed the basic design of the new 9-speed for front-drive vehicles, while the 10-speed’s design comes from Ford. Jumping to 9- and 10-speeds from the 6-, 7-, and 8-speed transmissions currently used across the industry improves the ratio spread — the numerical relationship between lowest and highest gears.

A large overall ratio spread makes it possible to achieve both lively acceleration and quieter highway cruising without sacrificing either. The larger the number, the better: the new 9-speed, for example, is expected to have a ratio spread close to 10:1, compared with a typical 6-speed’s ratio spread of about 6:1.

At the same time, the added gears make it feasible to use a smaller ratio spread between adjacent gears — for instance, fourth and fifth gears — to keep the engine revving at its best power level for a given road speed.

The additional gear ratios are seen as critical for use with the smaller, high-torque turbocharged engines that are increasingly common in cars and trucks. Such engines are leading a trend known as downspeeding, which calls for lowering engine r.p.m. to reduce fuel consumption.

With the new 9-speed, G.M. and Ford are following ZF, which unveiled the first production 9-speed automatic in 2011. The ZF transmission will be introduced in the 2014 Jeep Cherokee and the Range Rover Evoque. The ZF 9-speed is expected to offer up to 16 percent better highway fuel economy than 6-speed automatics, according to ZF engineers.

Like its ZF counterpart, the joint G.M.-Ford 9-speed is expected to feature clever design of its internal mechanisms aimed at making the transmission as compact as possible. This will be critical for fitting the new gearbox into small cars like the Chevrolet Sonic and the Ford Fiesta. Currently these cars can fit only 6-speed transmissions because of the limited width between their front wheels. The 10-speed, because of its longitudinal installation in pickup trucks (where it is expected to be used in high volume), will not be as space-constrained as the front-drive 9-speed.

Despite the added complexity of additional gearsets and clutches in the new 9- and 10-speed automatics, those units are considered by many engineers to be more attractive than continuously variable transmissions. The C.V.T.’s appear mechanically simpler but lack the high torque capacity of conventional automatics and cost more to produce, say transmission experts.

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.